Trying to make sense of my own Sociological Imagination

Tag: London

The juxtaposition of these two images is intentional. At first glance they both appear to be of the same thing, some young lads performing a routine and wowing the crowd with their physical agility but if we look deeper into the images, they are about something else, the crowd within the frame. This shifting from the performers being the subject of the photo to the object of the gaze of the crowd is something at I found particularly interesting. The onlookers who saw my camera would have assumed that the flips and turns were what I was focusing on when really it was their reactions that were capturing my imagination and the way they were interacting with the performance.

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As the walk continued along the South bank, we decided to move from the more familiar path onto the beach that is unveiled with the tide. Sitting on the glistening peddles was a badge adorned with the words ‘it’s my birthday’. When I looked up from the trinket that had captured my eye, I noticed a figure on the end of the jetty that was staring into space deep in thought. This made me think of the fleeting moments of celebration and occasions that such objects symbolise and the impact they have upon our thoughts and feelings regarding the passing of time and the ageing process.

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This is the first in a series of posts sharing some of the images I took during the photo walk with Paul Halliday, organised as part of the IVSA 2013 conference, I happened upon a young man dressed all in black sporting tussled locks of blond hair who was tagging walls with graffiti. The poignance of the words ‘As easy as being born’ did not pass me by, having taken a journey from south London streets around New Cross into the south bank where many bars and restaurants are beyond the means of many of the residents of the capital yet their patrons take them for granted. For me, this image typified the groaning urban inequalities of London.